Charles Dickens Audio Books

"Bleak House is such a natural for audio that it comes as no surprisethat [Dickens] himself read it aloud tohis own family.

 

No matter how good he was as a reader, he could not have performed better than Robert Whitfield does here. With a motley cast of characters to challenge the skill of any narrator, [Whitfield's] brilliant dramatizations range from a homeless street urchin to an arrogant barrister, from a canny old windbag to a high-minded heroine who deserves the happy ending Dickens affords her. Whitfield is also as persuasive as the indignant voice of the author himself, attacking both the injustice of the law and the cruel indifference of society. This may be one of the most
Dickensian novels Dickens ever wrote. Highly recommended." -- Library Journal

Bleak House opens in a London shrouded by an all-pervading foga fog that swirls most densely about the Court
of Chancery, where the obscure case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce lies lost in endless litigation, slowly devouring an
inheritance in legal costs. Against this ominous background, the novel follows the fortunes and desires of several characters
whose fates are tied to the case: Ada and Richard, two young orphans who stand to inherit and wish to marry when they do;
the worthy John Jarndyce, their voluntary guardian while the case is pending; and Esther Summerson, Jarndyce's protge,
whose romance is complicated by torn loyalties and whose origin is shrouded in mystery and scandal.

Dicken's complex portrait of London society is peopled with characters both comic and tragic, including one of literature's first detectives, a case of spontaneous human combustion, an enigmatic noblewoman haunted by her past, and Jo the crossing-sweeper, whose brutish life and death are the instruments for one of Dickens' most savage judgments on an indifferent society. Bleak House, in its atmosphere, symbolism, and magnificent bleak comedy, is often regarded as the best of Dickens, so inventive in its competing plots and styles that it eludes interpretation.

Charles Dickens (1812 –1870) was born in Landport, Portsea, England, the second of eight children in a family continually plagued by debt. A legacy brought release from the nightmare of debtors' prison and child labor and afforded him two years of formal schooling. He worked as an attorney's clerk and newspaper reporter until his early writings brought him the amazing success that was to be his for the remainder of his life.

Earphones Awards recipient Robert Whitfield was born in England and worked for the BBC for ten years as a radio news announcer and also worked as a narrator for the Royal National Institute for the Blind in London. In addition to narrating for Blackstone Audiobooks, he involves himself in numerous stage-acting projects in the United States and Europe.